Florida Sen. Nancy Detert is the latest Republican to draw the ire of Tea Party groups.
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A group called the Americans for Prosperity, founded by the Koch Brothers, has launched a campaign-style blitz against the Venice Republican that includes mailers, a social media component and even television ads questioning her commitment to conservative causes.
“Her voting record is a disappointment to conservatives,” said Slade O’Brien, the executive director of AFP’s Florida Chapter.
Detert, first elected to the Legislature in 1998, brushed off the attacks as coming from outsiders — AFP is based in Virginia — trying to step into local politics. She said local Republicans know she is fiscally conservative and looking out for the community’s interests.
The AFP attacks come just days after the Tea Party Leadership Fund announced it was seeking a primary challenger to U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, because he voted to allow the government to reopen and the nation’s debt ceiling to be raised again.
“It’s time that Republicans start cutting these fringe groups out of the picture,” Detert said. “They are misleading local conservatives about my record.”
The ads blast Detert for supporting tax breaks for sports facilities and spring training sites such as the Ed Smith Sports Complex in Sarasota to keep teams in Florida. Senate Bill 306, cited by the ads, created an application process allowing teams to apply for a pot of $15 million in annual sports incentive money.
Detert, who represents all of Sarasota County and part of Charlotte, backed that bill, but opposed giving direct support to sports franchises for stadiums such as the Miami Dolphins’. Detert said she has supported past taxpayer funding for spring training stadiums and for the Nathan Benderson Rowing Park in Sarasota because they create jobs and boost the tourism economy.
Still, O’Brien characterized Detert’s vote as support for tax giveaways and corporate welfare.
O’Brien said Detert was a target because she voted against a pension reform bill last spring and an education reform bill that would have allowed private charter schools to more easily take over failing public schools, and backed a plan to expand Medicaid to provide health coverage to more of the poor in Florida.
Detert is not AFP’s only mark. The group is also going after state Sen. Charles Dean, a Citrus County Republican, and Sen. Greg Evers, a Republican from the Florida Panhandle.
Detert scoffed at AFP’s assertion that she supported corporate welfare for billionaires, given AFP’s backing. The group was started in 2004 partly by the Koch Brothers, the billionaire industrialists who have become key financial backers of the Tea Party movement nationwide. Currently, David Koch is the chairman of the AFP Foundation’s board.
O’Brien would not say how much his group is spending against Detert, but Detert estimated it to be around $100,000.
O’Brien said his group is frustrated that Republicans hold the governor’s office and control both the Senate and House, yet cannot get their full agenda through.
“The fact that we can’t get our reforms through doesn’t make sense to us,” O’Brien said.
He blamed Republicans such as Detert, Evers and Dean for not supporting its efforts.
Detert helped kill the so-called parent-trigger bill in each of the last two years. The proposal would have made it easier for failing schools to be turned into for-profit charter schools. Detert, a former Sarasota County school board member, has argued that turning schools over to charter school companies is not a cure for struggling schools and questioned the impact on taxpayers.
“Schools paid for by taxpayers should not be turned over to for-profit companies without them paying us any rent or paying back the bonds that taxpayers paid for to build them,” Detert said.
O’Brien said despite the ads, his group is not recruiting candidates to run against Detert in 2014, when she is next up for re-election.
“Clearly she is very popular in her district,” O’Brien said, noting she did not draw an opponent in her last campaign for the Senate.
Rather, the ads are designed to let conservatives know that AFP is upset with her positions and to send a message to other legislators that there are consequences to opposing the organization.
